US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on July 21 for "Semiconductor processing tool and methods of operation" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,686,097, issued on July 21, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor processing tool and methods of operation" was invented by Yi-Cheng Lin (New Taipei City, Taiwan), Kao-Feng Liao (Hsinchu City, Taiwan) and Peng-Chung Jangjian (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A planarization tool is configured to monitor and analyze the condition of a polishing pad over the life of the polishing pad. A piezoelectric pad monitoring device may be mounted to a polishing head of the planarization tool in place of a semiconductor wafer. The piezoelectric pad monitoring device may be pressed ...